Matthew Morgan had been trained to clearly and objectively assess how dangerous any given situation may be. Sky diving? A romantic walk on the beach? Rush hour traffic on the DC beltway? Breaking into a highly secured enemy compound?
Those are situations he could understand.
And while he wouldn't exactly claim to be an expert parent, he did have nine years of experience with it. And he'd known Rachel Vivian Cameron for nearly thirteen years, so he thought that he knew her pretty well.
Even with his expertise, Matthew had no idea what to expect.
He was sitting at the kitchen island, reading some reports Joe had asked him to look over. On the stool next to him was Cammie, dressed in her pajamas, reading a book on poisons that Abby had given her. They both had half empty mugs of hot chocolate on the island before them.
When they heard the electronic deadbolt open, they both looked up from their reading just in time to see Rachel walk through the door, and groan.
"What's wrong?"
Sitting at the island to do anything other than eat a meal had, in the Morgan household, become a clear signal that something was wrong. It probably started when Matt and Rachel had sat there, with toddler Cammie in their arms, as they waited for Abby to arrive so that they could tell her that Phineas Cameron had, after a year-long illness, finally passed away. Then it was where Rachel had been sitting when Cam had gotten in trouble for using the advanced self-defense maneuvers Matt had taught her on a boy in her kindergarten class. It was where Matt and Rachel had both been sitting when they were waiting for Cam to come home from Abby's apartment after missing her kindergarten graduation.
As Rachel shed her winter coat and hat and gloves, Matt gave Cam an impatient look. She opened her mouth, cast her eyes between her parents, and said "It's nothing that bad."
"Cam." Matt scolded immediately.
Rachel moved to the opposite side of the island, and leaned against the counter top. She looked completely exhausted, but ready for whatever news her husband and daughter had to report.
"Rachel, darling," Matt took a deep breath. "As you remember, we have recently decided that Cam is allowed to stay at home alone for a few hours at a time now that she is almost ten, right?"
Rachel sighed, nodded, and looked exasperatedly at her daughter, waiting for the bad news to hit.
"Well, I went to the Pentagon City Mall today to finish my Christmas shopping, and Cameron and I agreed that she would stay at home."
"And she didn't?" Rachel finished. Cammie had the grace to look a little ashamed of herself.
"No, she didn't. Cammie, would you like to tell your mother what you did?"
Quietly, Cammie said, "I tailed dad around the mall."
"You what?"
"I tailed dad around the mall."
Rachel stood up straighter, and fought to hide her surprise.
"… How?"
"I waited for five minutes after dad left, then I snuck out and took the bus. I knew dad would get there faster, but he'd told me what store he was going to buy Grandma Morgan's present from, so I waited for him there. And then I tailed him."
Rachel needed a moment to let the story settle in.
"Why?"
"I wanted to see what he was getting me for Christmas."
Beside Cammie, Matthew looked equally as bemused as he was irritated, and Rachel was starting to understand why.
"It worked."
"What?"
"It worked. I tailed dad for an hour and a half before he caught me, and I found out he bought me a new coat—" Cammie insisted, her cheeks flushing.
"You tailed your father for an hour and a half?"
She nodded, and Rachel turned to her husband. They shared a look—Rachel amused, and Matthew totally unamused—before Matt spoke up.
"And would you like to tell your mother why I caught you?"
"I—I sat down to eat a pretzel that I bought."
"And did that pretzel spoil your appetite for dinner?"
"Well, I think it was the pretzel and the lemonade that spoiled my appetite, dad."
Rachel hummed and nodded solemnly. Then she turned her attention back to Matt.
"And you, Matt? What did you do wrong?"
"I assumed that my daughter would follow the rules we set for her."
"And that's the only thing you did wrong?"
"Yes. I was bread crumbing, I was flipping, I was clearing my corners. I was using all of my best counter-surveillance moves, but she was still there, in the Pentagon City Mall, following me, for nearly two hours."
Rachel nodded again, and then turned her head back towards Cammie.
"Cam, sweetie. The reason your dad is upset is one, because we trusted you to stay at home and not cause any trouble, and two, the Pentagon City Mall is kind of a hotbed for operatives like ourselves. There are a lot of our co-workers there at any given moment—you cannot know why right now—but there are also plenty of foreign operatives, and they might be dangerous. Do you understand?"
Cammie cast her eyes towards the floor, but she nodded.
"I'm glad." Rachel said, reaching across the island to brush Cam's hair out of her face. "Now," She said, her tone suddenly much more chipper. "Your Aunt Abby hasn't left for her next mission yet. Go call her and tell her what you did—she'll think it's hilarious."
Cam immediately giggled and slid from the stool, and ran to get the phone from the office. Matt, meanwhile, groaned just as Rachel started to laugh.
"I'm going to tell everyone at work." She hissed.
"Rachel—"
"Dave, Christine, Jennifer, Linda—Joe. Oh, I need to tell Joe. Joe is going to die from laughing."
"Rachel—"
"He just asked you to lecture on surveillance and counter-surveillance at Blackthorne, and you failed to see that your own nine-year-old daughter was tailing you through a mall."
"It was very crowded, and she's still a little short for her age—"
But Rachel just kept laughing, and shaking her head at her husband.
"Rachel? Rachel—fine. Fine. This is funny. This is very funny. The Agency might fire me on principle, and we'll be a one-income household in a city with a high cost of living, but this is all very amusing—"
Stumbling around the kitchen island with half-open eyes, Rachel wrapped her arms around her husband's neck in a weak hug as she continued to laugh.